We’re cheating a little with this week’s “band,” weirdlings. Meow the Jewels isn’t a band per se; it’s more of a remix project, created hardcore hip-hop duo El-P and Killer Mike, aka Run the Jewels. The weird part? All of the remixes are composed primarily out of cat sounds. Why didn’t anyone think of this […]

Weird Live Review: Trippple Nippples

Time for another first here at TWBITW: our first-ever concert review! Gee, that only took us three years. Stick around, who knows what we’ll do in another three years. (Learn to take better photos? We can dare to dream.)

Last night, Jake and I and a couple of buddies with a fondness for spazzy J-pop trekked out to Santa Monica and the Central SAPC (Social and Pleasure Club—fancy!) to behold the insanity that is Trippple Nippples. For those of you who don’t regularly follow this blog (we forgive you), The Trippps are a female trio from Japan who we originally described as “hyper-caffeinated electro-pop”—although after last night’s show, I feel like we made need to revise that description a little. They’ve got more punk energy than we gave them credit for.

We arrived not really knowing what to expect, having only seen a few photos and grainy videos of past Trippp Nippp performances. But what little we saw looked pretty off the chain, as the kids may or may not still say. Would they come out clad in their Baileys-squirting cow costumes? Their noodle helmets? Their highly disturbing black latex body paint? The possibilities seemed endless.

When they finally took the stage, about an hour behind schedule, the three Trippps (I can’t call them Nippps because that sounds racist), along with their three-piece backing band, were clad in eye-catching but comparatively tame white jumpsuits covered with black cartoon shapes (including, most prominently, penises) and pseudo-tribal patterns—very Die Antwoord-esque, in a way. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that they didn’t opt for something more outrageous; then again, getting a cow costume through customs has to be a bitch.

For their first several songs, it seemed like I had gotten Trippple Nippples all wrong. Although their music did feature lots of electronics (the guitar-bass-drums backing band sometimes seemed, honestly, like it was mainly for show), the tempos and overall vibe were much more punk/thrash than I was prepared for. A pretty frenetic mosh pit even broke out, although it was one of those annoying hipster mosh pits where the look on everyone’s face said, “I may be shoving you as I pogo around like an idiot, but I’m doing it ironically.”

The Trippps’ set got more interesting as it went along—and I’m not just saying that because two of the three Nippplettes stripped to the waist, revealing that all they were wearing under those jumpsuits was body paint and strategically placed duct tape. The music got a little less spazzy, more dancey and melodic. By the time they finished with their most hyper-caffeinated song, “LSD” (definitely my new favorite pro-drug anthem), they had revealed themselves to be more accessible and way more versatile than I was expecting. Although “LSD” would still probably give most American pop music consumers a seizure.

Anyway, here are some more crappy iPhone photos from last night’s show, made slightly less crappy by the miracle of Instagram, along with some non-crappy iPhone photos from our buddy Brad Cooper. And although we didn’t get any video of the Central SAPC show, some budding documentarian was kind enough to post a clip from their show in San Diego the previous night. Oh, and more Trippp Nippp tour dates after the jump, too.